Summary: Supposed to be a continuation of AFTERMATH, but ended up becoming
a story without it. Cont. relationship established between N/S in
AFTERMATH.

Disclaimers: I've repeatedly asked CBS to let me have Nick, but so far they
are ignoring my requests. I don't own any of the other characters either.

For all the people who keep emailing me requesting more Nick / Sara stories
from me. Just remember, at heart I really want Sara with Grissom. Because
Nick is waiting for me. Maybe one of these days, I will write a third
chapter for Aftermath.

______________________________________

Sara found him on the roof. He was in his normal spot, back pressed
against one of the walls enclosing the stairwell. He always came up here
to think, or when he needed to clear his head after a particularly bad
case.

They had caught a bad one the other day - the type of case that made his
skin crawl and gave him nightmares long after it was over. He, Grissom and
Sara had been called to a crime scene involving the supposed 'accidental'
death of a young girl, but it had quickly become apparent the girl had been
murdered. For one thing, the child was severely underweight, malnourished
to the point of emaciation. For another, the mother had insisted the child
was only five years old, but a cursory inspection of her mouth had shown
that several adult teeth were already in place. David had estimated actual
age to be closer to nine. Grissom had returned to the lab with David to
view the autopsy, leaving him and Sara to process the crime scene.

The child had supposedly gotten caught by a string from her hooded
sweatshirt on a rusty metal slide in the back yard and lynched herself, but
Nick had been suspicious from the start. While Sara talked to Grissom and
David before they left, Nick had wandered around the unkempt backyard,
checking things out. There were no toys in the yard. Not one ball. Not
one Barbie. Just the rusted old slide, which looked like it had been
sitting there for decades, weeds tall around it.

Sara was snapping pictures when Nick walked into the now empty house. He
had grabbed Brass and told him he was going inside, and Brass had nodded
grimly. Checking the cupboards, Nick saw nothing even resembling what he
would expect to find in the home of a small child - no sugary cereals, no
fruit-roll-ups; no healthy after-school snacks that most kids hated but
moms insisted on. The fridge was full of beer and cold pizza - no milk or
juice to be seen. Stepping into the living room, he had been struck once
again by the lack of child-related clutter. Walking down the hallway, he
had checked out the bathroom and the bedrooms. One was being used as
storage, and the other held only one bed.

Sara had followed him into the house, and had caught up with him in the
bedroom.

"Where did she sleep?" She had asked quietly.

He hadn't responded. Instead, he had wandered out of the bedroom and back
down the hallway, opening closets as he went, before stepping back outside
and telling Brass what he had discovered - or rather, what he had not.

Sara called something from inside the house about collecting the sheets
from the bed.

"I had to walk up four steps to get into the house," Nick had pointed out
to Brass, "But this is only a one story house. There doesn't appear to be
any basement. Do you think there's a cellar?"

* * * * *

Sara slid down the wall beside him, and he allowed himself to enjoy the
heat of her slight body pressing into his side. Glancing at her sideways,
he noticed the dark shadows under her eyes, the pallor of her already pale
complexion, and grimaced. Everyone had taken this case to heart.

Sighing, he felt her hand fit into his, fingers cold and wrapping tightly
against his own.

"You do okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

Sara shrugged, "As good as can be expected, all things considered. Grissom
told me to get you and go home. He said he'll finish up the paperwork
tomorrow. Catherine and Warrick left already."

Nick sighed again, rubbing his thumb absently across hers, before shifting
to look at her more intently. "Can we go to the hospital first?"

"Yeah. I think that's a good idea."

* * * * *

"Brass - Sara! I found a trap door!" Nick had noticed some odd coloration
on the linoleum tiles under the kitchen table. The owner of the house -
the mother of the little girl Doc Robbins was currently examining in the
morgue - had refused to say anything to them other than the fact said girl
was accidentally dead.

Nick had moved the table out of the way, and was on his knees feeling
around the slightly curled edges of the linoleum when he had realized it
was a hidden door. Prying with his fingers as he called the others, he
found the latch and slowly started lifting. The stench of urine and rot
that escaped through the initial small crack had made him draw back in
disgust and loosen his grip on the door, almost crushing his fingers in the
process.

Shutting his eyes tightly and swallowing quickly to fight back the
automatic gag reflex he had experienced, he turned his head sideways when
he heard Sara breathing shallowly through her mouth.

"Christ," Brass had muttered, "What the hell is that smell?"

"I don't think I want to know," Sara had whispered, even as they both
stepped forward and helped Nick get a better hold of the trap door, lifting
it upward and opening it wide.
Shining his maglite into the dark opening, Nick noted four rusted metal
ladder rungs, much like one would find in a sewer, leading straight down
roughly four and a half feet from the opening.

"Is anyone down there?" he had shouted, listening intently for a response.
Looking at Sara grimly, he had reached for the first rung. "I'm going
down."

* * * * *

Sara watched Nick covertly as he drove. He was running on pure adrenaline
alone, having neither slept nor eaten anything in almost 36 hours. His
hands were so tight around the steering wheel, it was a wonder he didn't
snap it in half. In the silence of the front seat, Sara could hear his
teeth grinding.

"Nick," she whispered softly, more to herself than to him, "oh Nick."

* * * * *

"What's down there?" Sara's voice had echoed hollowly down the narrow
opening, startling him from his almost trance. He was standing in a
shallow room, in a painful half crouch, his maglite beam barely making a
mark in the pervasive darkness.

"It's like a cellar. I'm wondering if it might have been a bomb shelter at
one point," he had responded. "It's not very deep - I can't straighten
out. I need the bigger maglite - this beam is too thin."

"Okay," she had responded, "I'm coming down with it."

Hunching down, Nick moved forward a few feet, slowly allowing his eyes to
adjust to the dark. The beam of the larger flashlight was welcome, as was
Sara's presence behind him.

"It's a concrete hallway," she whispered.

"Yeah," he had replied. Shining the light along the floor, he noted with
disgust the urine stains on the floor. Three feet away from where he and
Sara crouched, the hallway ended and he could see a dark opening. Behind
him, he heard Sara slide her gun from its holster. The closer they moved
towards the opening, the more putrid and rank the smell became.

He could hear something dripping, and judged from the echo that the hallway
actually opened into a slightly larger room.

"That little girl lived down here," he murmured. Stepping gingerly as they
moved forward, he noted with some subconscious part of his mind that the
concrete hallway ended abruptly with a step down into the darkened room.

* * * * *

The Children's Aid worker was still sitting in the waiting room where Nick
and Sara had last seen her, hours ago. She looked up warily when she
spotted Nick.
"There's been no change."

"None at all?" Nick asked quietly.

The woman shook her head sadly, "I was going to call you later today. Your
boss - Mr. Grissom - told me you were going home to get some rest after
your shift."

"What about you?" Sara replied. "We're used to staying up all night, but
I'm sure these aren't your normal hours."

The woman shrugged, "I couldn't leave."

Nick studied her intently, before nodding abruptly as if he'd just decided
something. Sinking into an empty vinyl seat a few down from the social
worker, he tried to smile at her.

"I'd like to apologize to you for yelling at you earlier," he began. "I
know this isn't your fault. It's just so -" he stopped, at a loss for
words, and looked at Sara for help.

"Agonizing," she supplied, "Frustrating. How does stuff like this happen?"

The social worker shrugged her shoulders and sighed, "Some kids just slip
through the cracks. Sad as that is."

* * * * *

It had taken a few minutes before Nick actually realized that the small
bundle of rags lying in the far corner of the cold room was actually
another child. Biting back a vile curse, he had hollered down the narrow
hallway past Sara, "Brass - we've got another kid down here."

He forgot about moving carefully as he quickly moved towards the child,
trying to ignore the wet noises his shoes made as he walked through the
feces and other rotted garbage covering the small room.

Reaching down, he quickly placed his fingers at the pulse point of the
frail neck, not knowing whether to be relieved or not when he felt a
thready pulse. He couldn't even tell if the child was a boy or a girl.

"I've got a pulse," he said to Sara. "Take the light - let's get this kid
out of here."

* * * * *

The hospital was bustling to life. Nick woke first, ignoring the tightness
in his back and the cramp in his neck as he shifted slightly to the left
and gingerly settled Sara's head from his chest to the back of the seat.

Ms. Green, the social worker, slept uncomfortably a few feet away in her
own cramped chair. Rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, trying to
massage the cramps out on his own, he reached idly into his pocket and
retrieved enough loose change to buy three strong coffees from the vending
machine.

Walking to the nurses station, he tried to smile when the nurse sitting
there looked at him, "I'm with the LVPD - Crime Lab. Has there been any
change to Jane Doe, the little girl brought in last night?"

The nurse's eyes softened at his words, and she shook her head. "Dr.
Moore's in there with her right now. Poor little thing."

"That's the doctor that admitted her, right? Can you tell him that Nick
Stokes is in the waiting room with Sara Sidle? He knows us. And the
Children's Aid worker, Ms. Green, is there too."

* * * * *

Nick had ridden with the child in the back of the ambulance to the
hospital. Brass had quickly called Grissom when Nick and Sara had emerged
from the cellar with the small child, informing him the crime scene was a
lot larger - and the crime even more serious - than anyone had imagined.

Quickly shutting off the cellar and posting police officers to guard the
area, Brass and Sara had followed the ambulance, sirens blaring, all the
way to the hospital.

Inside the ambulance, an older EMT had worked frantically, trying to
stabilize the pulse and get a blood pressure reading on the child. Sitting
as unobtrusively as possible up near the top of the stretcher, by the
child's head, Nick had gently rubbed his hand across the dirty forehead and
through the snarled hair, the calluses on his palms catching on the brittle
strands.

"Come on, princess, come on," the EMT muttered, as he slid an oxygen mask
over her face and quickly inserted an IV needle into the fragile veins on
the back of the bird-like hands. The tubing for the rehydrating drip
looked more substantial to Nick than the girls' fingers.

Arriving at the hospital, Nick had climbed out of the back of the ambulance
and smiled grimly at Sara and Brass as they quickly ran towards him. "It's
a little girl."

* * * * *

Nick woke Sara up, handing her the still steaming coffee, before turning
towards Ms. Green and nudging her gently. The two women were still half-
asleep when Dr. Moore found them. His face was haggard and grim.
Nick knew what the doctor was going to say before he even opened his mouth.
"I was too late, wasn't I? She's not going to make it."

Sara stepped forward and squeezed Nick's hand tightly.

"We can't stop the break down of her body," Dr. Moore began. "That little
girl -" he paused, "There's no brain activity. Her body is starved, and
the electrolyte imbalance and dehydration was too much. All the life
support is doing is prolonging her suffering. Do we know who she is yet?"

Ms. Green shut her eyes in anguish as she shook her head, "We have no
idea."

"All we know is that her sister is already dead, and the woman who we've
arrested for murder isn't their mother," Sara added, "There's no DNA match.
Unless someone came forward or names have been found since we left the lab.
I'll go call Brass."

* * * * *

Nick was holding the fragile hand of the little girl in his own as the EMTs
rolled her quickly into the emergency room, followed by Brass and Sara.
When a nurse would have made them step out into the waiting room, Brass had
flashed his badge and she had grudgingly subsided.

A young doctor had come to her almost immediately, speaking quietly to the
medics before checking her reflexes and her pupil dilation with a small pen
light. Nick had noticed how dark and brown the girls pupils were. Her
eyes were the same color as Sara's.

"You're the officers who found her?"

"Yes," Nick had replied, "We work for the crime lab. We were investigating
the suspicious death of another child on the premises."

"Who's responsible for this child?"

"At the moment, we are," Brass had spoken up. "I'm Captain Jim Brass, and
these are CSI's Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle. I called in Children's Aid on
the drive here. They were going to send someone right over."

"Do you have a name for this child?"

"As of right now, she's Jane Doe # 2. Her mother is refusing to talk to
us."

"Is she going to be all right, Doctor?" Nick asked.

"We need to run several tests, so I don't know. Her reflexes and pupils
are non-reactive. That's not a good sign."

* * * * *

Ms. Green had finally left a little while ago. "I have to get some of this
paperwork filed, and get an official order making this child a ward of the
state," she had stated sadly. "Until we get that done, she'll be in limbo.
We won't be able to legally turn off the life support."

Sara had gone back to the lab, summoned by an early morning page, more
likely than not pertaining to the case.

"Grissom said to let you stay here. I won't be long."

"Page me if you get a name."

Dr. Moore had agreed to let Nick see the girl, and that short visitation
had turned into three hours of sitting silently by her bedside, listening
to the hiss of the oxygen mask and the steady blips of the heart monitor.

When the goodwill cart had come through an hour or so ago, pushed by an
impossibly young candy-stripper, Nick had purchased a paddle brush, a small
bottle of Pert 2 in 1 conditioning shampoo and some nail clippers.

One of the nurses had provided him with a basin of warm water, and Nick had
gently washed the little girls hair several times until the shampoo rinsed
away clean. With the large brush, he had painstakingly worked out the
gnarls and knots section by section, and finished by washing her face and
the exposed skin on her arms with a warm washcloth before gently cleaning
and clipping her nails.

"There you go, angel," he had murmured as he took her tiny hand back into
his warm grasp. "We'll find out who you are. Someone out there must be
looking for you."

* * * * *

"Nick. We know who she is."

Sara's voice broke through his sleep, and Nick groggily lifted his head
from the side of the bed where it had fallen. Sara's hand was on his
shoulder. Behind her, Grissom stood studying the little girl intently.

"You've found her parents?"

"Just her mother. She's in the state penitentiary for manslaughter -
killed her common-law husband, the girl's father. Says it was in self-
defense. She gave her daughters to her cousin to look after for her while
she was in jail, and the cousin passed them off to a family friend.
Mirinda James. The lady who was claiming to be their mother."

"What's her name?"

"This is Kayla King. She's five. Her sister - her name was Shawna. She
just turned 9 last week."

Nick turned back to look at the little girl. "Kayla."

"Her mother has agreed to sign her parental rights over to Children's Aid."
It was Grissom who spoke now, voice infinitely sad. "Ms. Green will be
here soon. They're going to turn off the life support."

"How long has her mother been in jail?"

"Two years so far."

"When did the cousin give the girls to Mirinda James?"

Grissom sighed, "As far as we can tell, about eight months ago."

* * * * *

Nick, Sara, Grissom and Brass, along with Ms. Green, were with Kayla when
Dr. Moore turned off the life support. Nick had insisted on staying,
saying firmly that no child should have to die alone. The others had
concurred.

No one spoke, each lost deep in their own thoughts, as the steady rise and
fall of the small chest slowly stilled, and the beeping on the heart
monitor faded away. Nick gently stroked the little girl's forehead and
smoothed her hair. "Fly away home, angel. Fly away home."

* * * * *

Nick had the next shift off. Physically, he was exhausted and needed the
sleep. Emotionally, he was still reeling from the deaths of Shawn and
little Kayla. He kept asking himself if they had been there, even a little
earlier, would she still be alive?

He could still remember the silky feel of her hair after he had cleaned it,
the fragile bones of her hand hanging limply in his own. He was sitting in
the living room, watching George Foreman shilling the Foreman Fat Free
Grill, when Sara came home.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" She smiled at him, trying to keep her tone
light.

Nick shook his head, "Minds been spinning."

Grabbing the remote, Sara flipped the TV off and slid into the arm chair he
was sitting in, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You can't blame
yourself, you know. You did more for that little girl than anyone else
probably did in the last couple of years."

"It doesn't help. She shouldn't have had to go through that. Her sister
shouldn't have died. And who's going to take care of them now?" Nick's
tone was hushed, and he allowed his head to drop and rest against the top
of Sara's.

"Brass told me to tell you he talked the LVPD into donating the money for a
proper burial for the girls. Mobley was against it, but Brass convinced
him it was a good political move. He wanted to know if you wanted to
choose the headstone."

Nick half-smiled, "He's sly like a fox. But that's good. I was going to
talk to you about that. I can't stand the thought of them getting a
pauper's burial."

His fingers had trailed up to her head, stroking absently through her hair.
"I can't believe in this day and age that stuff like that can still
happen. Two little girls can just disappear, and no one asks where they
are. They go live with someone not even related, and they end up dead."